Al Qaeda's message and the myth of authentic blackness
As I awoke yesterday morning to the new Al Qaeda audiotape, I was shocked at the content in it. Now we all know that Al Qaeda is notorious for vitriolic messages, but there was something especially strong in this particular one. Al Qaeda's second in command, Ayman Al- Zawahiri issued a taped message insulting Americans, and Obama specifically. He referred to Obama, Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell and their "likes" as "house slaves ( negroes )." He furthermore said that Obama was not an authentic black leader like Malcolm X. Let me attack this from a series of angles. 1) It is very clear that Al- Zawahiri has been reading some of the books that Malcolm X wrote. Clearly as one runs around and ducks the American and coalition forces in Afghanistan, living in caves and the like, there must be considerable time to read. And in all likelihood the way that he became attuned to Malcolm X was through an American member of the Taliban, as some of his recent taped mes...